Howard Kunreuther: “There’s a tendency for all of us — not just firms, but individuals — to be myopic,” he says, “to want to get something back in the short term to justify an investment. It often takes a disaster to get people to pay attention.”

Critics of federal disaster aid contend that paying for building along the ocean provides an incentive for unsustainable behavior. Marty Moss-Coane’s interview with Howard Kunreuther, co-director of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center and Scott Gabriel Knowles, Drexel University associate professor of History & Politics. (Audio:http://soundcloud.com/whyy-public-media/the-moral-hazard-sandy-relief).

Following a corporate scandal, managers who acknowledge they have problems and launch communication programs to repair their tarnished reputations stand the best chance of rehabilitating a tainted brand or corporate image, according to Wharton faculty and branding consultants.

2004

“Pixar isn’t like Disney; they don’t do things the same way,” Mar Elepano, production supervisor of the division of animation and digital arts at USC’s School of Cinema-Television, told MacNewsWorld. “At Disney, there’s the problem of too many cooks in the kitchen.” But Elepano pointed out that Disney has one thing Pixar needs — an “incredible distribution mechanism.”

Adding more fuel to the drive to oust Michael Eisner as chairman of the board of the Walt Disney Co., five more state pension funds plan to withhold their votes for Eisner at Disney’s shareholders meeting.

2002

Advance publicity is key to record albums’ success, states Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader “and by trying to stamp out peer-to-peer music trading, record companies are shooting themselves in the foot.”

1997

Who cares what Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert think? An old Hollywood saw is that movie critics are out of sync with the ticket-buying public. Consider L. A. Confidential, a police drama set in the 1950’s starring Kim Basinger and Kevin Spacey. All the reviewers’ talk about Oscar-level performances and four-star quality didn’t matter at the box office, where the film noir has thus far bagged a so-so $33 million.